Do Not Disturb: New DND guidelines and rules from TRAI

Here is how the new set of revamped guidelines from TRAI will work:
- Telemarketers to be assigned a distinct series beginning with 140. If you find any call from any number starting with this series then don’t attend the call, this is an unwanted call from commercial telemarketers.
- The minimum penalty for violations has been set at Rs 25,000 against Rs 500 at present. As the penalties will progressively increase, the sixth violation will attract Rs 2.5 lakh fine. Telemarketers can also be blacklisted for two years after the sixth violation. Service providers will be barred from providing any telecom resource to blacklisted telemarketers.
- The number of text messages or SMSes that can be sent will be restricted to 100 a day per SIM for prepaid and 3,000 a month for post-paid telephone numbers. TRAI directs all Access providers to exclude the following persons from the limit of one hundred SMS per day per SIM:

(i) Dealers of the Telecom Service Providers and DTH Operators for sending request for electronic recharge on mobile numbers;
(ii) e-ticketing agencies for responding to e-ticketing request made by its customers;
(iii) The social networking sites – Facebook, Twitter, Orkut, LinkedIn and GooglePlus to its members pertaining to activities relating to their accounts based on their verifiable options;
(iv) Agencies providing directory services – Justdial, Zatse, Callezee, Getit and Askme.

How to Register for DND 
- No calls and messages are permitted between 9 pm and 9 am.
- Some blocked categories from TRAI are:
1- Banking & financial products
2- Communication & entertainment
3- Tourism or leisure
4-  Consumer goods
5-  Automobiles
6- Real estate
7- Education
8- Health
- Dial or send an SMS to 1909 to register with NCPR or register at www.nccptrai.gov.in , Choose categories of commercial messages/ calls to be blocked. Those already registered with National Do Not Call Registry (NDNC), need not re-register.


Here is the way how to register for DND under new guidelines from TRAI:
Dial or send an SMS to 1909 (toll free) to register with NCPR or register at http://www.nccptrai.gov.in/nccpregistry/ , Choose categories of commercial messages/ calls to be blocked.
The customer can register in either of the two categories:
Fully Blocked Category- stoppage of all commercial Calls/SMS Partially Blocked Category- stoppage of all commercial Calls/SMS except SMS from one of the opted preferences.
For registering option using SMS, for ‘fully blocked category’, write “START 0″ and send it to 1909. For ‘partially blocked category’, send SMS ‘START’ with one or multiple options from the list of seven categories.
There are at present 7 preferences to choose from- Banking/Insurance/Financial Products/Credit Cards-1, Real Estate-2, Education-3, Health-4, Consumer goods and automobiles-5, Communication/Broadcasting/Entertainment/IT, Tourism-7.
For example: To receive messages relating to only Health products, then send SMS “START 4″ to 1909. Similarly, for receiving messages relating to Real Estate and Education, send SMS “START 2,3″ to 1909.
Keep your Unique Registration Number safe for future use.
On successful registration, customer will receive an SMS confirming exercised options and a Unique Registration Number within 24 hrs. The registration will be effective within 7 days of placing the request with the service provider.
Customer can also change the preferences after 7 days of registration or the last change of preference.
- Those already registered with National Do Not Call Registry (NDNC), need not re-register.